Weeks Later, Kenyan Mall Attack Affects Tourism, Political Stability

Crowds flee the sound of gunfire near the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya - September 21, 2013.

Credit Anne Knight / Wikimedia Commons

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Weeks after the attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi that killed dozens of people, analysts are starting to make sense of the attack by the al-Shabaab Islamist group.

“Al-Shabaab has claimed this is in retaliation for Kenyan forces being in Somalia,” says Rebecca Cruise, the Assistant Dean of the University of Oklahoma’s College of International Studies. “Kenya can expect to see more unless they change their policies.”

Cruise says the militant group has successfully recruited Western youth for years, with hundreds of people from the United States and Europe joining the organization.

“They actually have a campaign – English videos on the Internet and that sort of thing – that really calls on converts to Islam to come and fight the fight there in Somalia,” Cruise says.

Suzette Grillot, the Dean of the College of International Studies at OU and an expert on international security, says the attack also affects the country’s tourism industry.

“People are starting to think once again, 'Should we be going to these places?',” Grillot says. “Kenya has been a relatively stable place over the past decade, at least in Africa. So now there are concerns not only about terrorism, but reprisal attacks on Somali communities there.”

Cruise says even the targeting of that particular mall was strategic, since it was a vibrant economic hub usually filled with foreigners.

“This was intentional to show how powerful they are not only there, but to the Western audience,” Cruise says. “And to hit an area where economics is thriving, there will potentially be consequences for tourism, economic development and investment.”

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One day after panic and confusion took over a shopping mall in Nairobi, survivors' accounts and photographs provide a close-up perspective of the scene. Their stories have given new detail to the chaos that erupted after attackers used grenades and guns to begin a standoff that lasted into Sunday.

The death toll at an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi has increased to at least 52, and civilians are still inside as militants exchange sporadic barrages of gunfire with Kenyan security troops outside.

"The priority is to save as many lives as possible," Joseph Lenku, Kenya's Interior cabinet secretary told AP early today. Kenyan forces have already rescued about 1,000 people, he said.

He said that five to 15 attackers are involved in the standoff, but declined to estimate the number of hostages.